“Wow, you sounded really good in that song, dude! I didn’t know you could sing so well.”

“Me neither, until I got Auto-Tuned.” Ba dum tsss!

Auto-tune, that musical remedy that many of us despise, was invented by Dr. Andy Hildebrand in 1997. The first song to be commercially produced with it was, interestingly enough, Cher’s 1998 hit “Believe”. Since then, Auto-Tune has greatly created a blur between singers who naturally sound good and ones who sound better when the software is used on their voices, such as Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus. One of the most popular things on YouTube right now is Auto-Tuned videos, ranging from viral news clips to Barack Obama speeches turned into songs such as this one:

Other songs known to have used Auto-Tune:

“One More Time” – Daft Punk

“These Streets Will Never Look The Same” – Chromatics

“Love Lockdown” – Kanye West

“Impossible Soul” – Sufjan Stevens

Other inventions that start with the letter A:

Air conditioner – invented by Willis Carrier in 1902

Air bag – invented by General Motors in 1973

Aluminum foil – invented by Charles Martin Hall in 1910

Aqualung – invented by Jacques Cousteau & Emile Gagnan in 1942

And a haiku for Auto-Tune:

Auto-Tune my voice
It sounds ten times better now
But fake as wood dolls